We need to talk. I don’t know of a nice way to say this, but you need to hang up the bag of tricks, boys, and please retire. Shauna Lyon puts it well in this week’s New Yorker, when she compares you to a corporate juggernaut and an “enduring medical miracle”:

“Can your grandfather even climb a tree, much less fall out of one, bash his head, survive, and still remember the changes on ‘Sister Morphine’?”

No, neither of my grandfathers can do this, due to the fact that they are both deceased. And not much older at their passings than you guys are at this moment. Lyon also compares you to diptheria and/or kudzu, and really, did you mean for it to come to this? No, I did not think so. But what really pushed me to write you this letter was when I read about the new documentary Martin Scorsese is filming about y’all, and that you had to hire “seventy-five dollar girls” to come sex it up a little. That they were asked to dress “trendy, sexy, hip… Women really glam it up, but not trashy… nothing too over the top and outrageous (wigs, crazy hats, etc.)…”

No wigs? No crazy hats? What the fuck is wrong with you guys? I just watched “Gimme Shelter” last week. Why, I do not know. I was running a high fever, and it seemed like a good idea. I loved your music when I was a teenager. So did my friends, and y’all were all we would listen to. I’m not talking about a five- or six-month period. I’m taking three, four years. To the point where we were planning a party and my boyfriend begged, “Please, could we possibly listen to something other than the Stones?” And we all yelled, “NO!” at him and almost wouldn’t let him party with us.

Almost. We gave in because, you know. He had all the pot. Anyway, I’ve loved you guys for a good long time now. I loved “Some Girls,” even though it was my mom’s favorite album, too, and like, how uncool is that to love the same album your ma does? I loved “One Hit to the Body” and I still listen to “Exile on Main Street” and “Sticky Fingers” over and over until my husband asks, “Please, could we possibly listen to something other than the Stones?” (Seems to be a pattern in my life.)

Anyway, I’ve seen “Gimme Shelter” probably fifty times, because I thought Tina Turner was just too fucking righteous in it, and although I didn’t like the part where the Hell’s Angels knock Marty Balin unconscious, I liked the Jefferson Airplane’s set up until that point. You want to talk sexy? Let’s talk about the Flying Burrito Brothers, and their set at Altamont. Ha! Kidding. The Flying Burrito Brothers didn’t do much for me, you know, sexually. You know who was sexy? The crowd. The guys with their fringed suede jackets. “And beatnik chicks/just wearing their smocks,” as the Beastie Boys would put it. The beads and the hats and the crazy wigs. And maybe some people who, eh, you didn’t really want to see take off their clothes went ahead and stripped, but there were enough other sexy people there that it didn’t matter.

Now, tell me — you played with Tina Turner and now you’re saying no crazy wigs? I mean, for real, what the fuck is wrong with y’all that you have to pay extras to kinda, what, prop you up? This is supposed to be a documentary, but when you’re staging things and posing people, and yadda yadda, that’s fiction, not fact.

A fact: Meredith Hunter was sexy at Altamont, with his electric green suit and his purple dress shirt, dancing with his sexy girlfriend who did indeed know how to dress, grooving on the Jefferson Airplane. He was sexy right up until the Hells Angels grabbed his gun and stabbed and kicked him to death. And then it was just God rest his soul and why the hell did I watch “Gimme Shelter” so many times? It took a fever for me to figure this out? You guys gave his mom $10,000, for losing her sweet, sexy, 18-year-old son. Is she still alive? If she is you need to give her some cash and make sure she’s set. Because how shitty is that, for 8 bazillion Stones-loving idiots like me to watch “Gimme Shelter” over and over and watch her son being killed onscreen. No one ever went to jail for that one, remember?

So please, hang it up. No crazy hats, no wigs. Just call it a day. Shidoobee.

Love,

WM

Posted by WackyMommy in Music, Rants |
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